New Music

Let’s begin with Igor Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring, a ballet score that premiered on May 29, 1913, in Paris. These days it’s become a well-loved work, but 100 years ago, its asymmetric rhythms and clashing dissonances caused such an uproar that the police were called in to calm the audience. But the rioting continued and got so intense that Stravinsky himself left before the performance was over. Wow ... passionate audiences who know what they do and don’t like! A century later in the city of Toronto, this work has already received one performance I can remember (by Esprit Orchestra in January) and will be featured in the Mariinsky Orchestra’s Roy Thomson Hall all-Stravinsky program on October 6.

But things will definitely take a different turn on October 11 at the X Avant Festival when the Montreal-based group Quartetski reinterprets this classic using unusual orchestration and free improvisation to bring out what they feel is implicit in the original. And that’s just what this exceptional group is dedicated to: a revisionist approach to classic works of the “great” composers achieved by mixing various traditions and techniques to discover new possibilities, ultimately creating a new type of chamber music. I suspect there won’t be a riot this time around, but rather enthusiastic ears welcoming the daring move into the somewhat sacrosanct territory of the musical masters.

Quartetski is a perfect example of what I’m sensing is becoming more and more standard — music that defies being pigeonholed into neat and tidy categories. And interestingly, the Canada Council for the Arts is getting in on the discussion. On October 13 there will be an interview and Q&A with one of their music officers (Jeff Morton) to discuss the new priorities and criteria for funding this music that is increasingly happening along the edges of traditional boundaries, a direction they describe as “genrelessness.”

But back to the second scandal-associated work that has been programmed. On October 12, Morton Feldman’s six-hour long String Quartet No.2 will be performed by New York’s incredible FLUX Quartet. So what’s the scandal? The piece was originally commissioned by New Music Concerts in 1983 and was broadcast live on CBC, performed by the then-unknown Kronos Quartet. But as the hours went by, CBC had to make a decision whether to cut it off to make way for the news broadcast. They decided to stick it out and no riots ensued. The piece ended just before the 1am blackout. The physical and mental rigours of performing such a long work demand extreme dedication by the performers.

FLUX, who take their name from the 1960s’ Fluxus movement, perform the work about once a year, making it into a bit of a speciality. No doubt they are so dedicated because of what they receive from performing it. Feldman’s music offers a truly intimate encounter with the substance of sound, unfolding subtly, calling out for your attention. It’s been said that you don’t really listen to the music, but rather you live through it, breathe with it. In other words, it is truly an immersive bodily experience. To create a sensitive listening environment, the Music Gallery will be transformed into two chill out rooms, with accompanying food vendors and installations in the nearby OCADU student gallery. Added to that, CIUT-FM will be broadcasting the entire performance as a nod to the original premiere. You can create your own unique listening environment if you live within radio signal range. It will be a “slow-motion rave.” Feldman himself called it “a fucking masterpiece.”

Other festival highlights include a rare appearance by the legendary minimalist Charlemagne Palestine on October 13, renowned for his high voltage piano-cluster music, and music by composers Rose Bolton (October 13) and Scott Good (October 20). Improv duo Not the Wind Not the Flag will partner with bassist William Parker on October 17; and the festival’s ensemble-in-residence — Ensemble SuperMusique from Montréal — will perform their revolutionary Musique Actuelle on October 18. The following night, A Tribe Called Red lets loose their version of urban abstract. Mixing Pow Wow sounds with pan-global influences, their beats have roared onto the scene and opened up new territories in the conversation around cultural exchange. Partnering with this concert is the ImagineNative Film Festival, which will be screening images from all aspects of First Nations life. Closing the festival on October 20 will be Hamilton-born tabla player Gurpreet Chana, whose influences stretch from DJ culture to classical South Asian. He will be transforming his tablas into a digital interface controlling an array of hardware and software to extend the sound of this much-loved instrument into unknown waters.

SEASON OPENERS

October is full of season openers for many of our local new music presenters. In Waterloo, NUMUS is offering two events in October quite different from each other. On October 4, the exceptional Gryphon Trio and guest clarinetist James Campbell will perform the epic Quartet for the End of Time, a 50-minute work by Olivier Messiaen, written while the composer was imprisoned during WWII. This will be partnered with Alexina Louie’s Echoes of Time which was inspired by Messiaen’s piece, along with music by the Ukrainian composer Valentin Silvestrov. All three pieces are on the Trio’s latest CD release For the End of Time. And on October 25, NUMUS contributes to the genrelessness orientation with a cabaret featuring the 13-piece Slaughterhouse Orchestra performing ten songs in a wide range of styles. Each song explores various novels written by the American writer Kurt Vonnegut.

Esprit Orchestra launches their “new era” on October 24 with Claude Vivier’s shimmering Zipangu, R. Murray Schafer’s tongue-in-cheek No Longer than Ten (10) Minutes, and two orchestral works by Montreal-born Samy Moussa, who now enjoys a career as both composer and conductor in Europe. The program rounds out with Russian composer Alfred Schnittke’s Viola Concerto.

New Music Concerts’ season begins on October 6 with a concert that received extensive coverage in September’s WholeNote. On November 1, they will present an electric evening of interactive works, highlighting two by David Eagle and others by Canadians Jimmie Leblanc, Anthony Tan and Anna Pidgorna, and German composer Hans Tutschku. Interactive compositions are like a great sonic playground where the acoustic sounds of the live instruments are transformed in real time with the aid of the technology.

October also heralds the beginning of a new chamber ensemble with the delectable name of Dim Sum, a group dedicated to presenting new compositions for Chinese instruments. Their debut concert, “Xpressions,” on October 27 features several world premieres by local composers. Another recently founded ensemble, the Thin Edge New Music Collective, will be performing works by John Zorn, Allison Cameron and others on October 25, while the Toy Piano Composers celebrate the beginning of their fifth season on October 12 at Gallery 345.

The Canadian Music Centre continues its concerts of contemporary piano works on October 3 and 13, as well as hosting “A Touch of Light” with piano music and visuals during Toronto’s Nuit Blanche on October 5. And to finish off, this month sees a number of concerts celebrating Benjamin Britten’s 100thanniversary. The Canadian Opera Company will be presenting two noon-hour concerts of his vocal music on October 9 and 23. His Violin Concerto will receive a performance by the Toronto Symphony Orchestra on October 10, while his War Requiem will be performed by several Kitchener-Waterloo area choirs in a concert presented by the Grand Philharmonic Choir on October 19.

The experimental pot is stirring and I encourage you to get out and support the blossoming of the new sounds of urban abstraction, wherever they may show up. Also, check out the WholeNote’s online blog for up-to-the-minute reports for some of these events. 

Wendalyn Bartley is a Toronto-based composer and electro-vocal sound artist. She can be contacted at sounddreaming@gmail.com

When September rolls around, there can be a feeling of anticipation in the air. It’s often a time of new opportunities, change and a chance to expand your horizons. And in this column, which is dedicated to the “new” in musical practice, there’s no better place to begin than with the Guelph Jazz Festival, running from September 4 to 8. Over the last 20 years, the festival has blossomed into a “vital social-purpose enterprise” with an artistic mandate rooted in the vision that musical improvisation provides a model for creating social change and building successful communities. This vision is also the driving force behind the innovative research project “Improvisation, Community and Social Practice” headed by Ajay Heble, artistic director of the festival.

Recently, this project just got a huge boost. It was the recipient of a substantial grant to launch the International Institute for Critical Studies in Improvisation at the University of Guelph. And to celebrate, the Guelph Jazz Festival will present an opening concert on September 3, featuring a special one-time improvising percussion quartet of four stellar musicians combining jazz, new music, free improv and world music traditions. This “World Percussion Summit” is yet another demonstration of what makes the festival so special and magical — expanding the meaning of jazz to include creative improvisation from across the musical spectrum. In this column I will be highlighting those concerts which fuse creative improvisation and composition.

A perfect example is a solo performance on September 5 by Matt Brubeck, a composer and performer trained in classical music and raised on jazz, who currently brings his focus on the improvising cello into dialogue with a variety of other musical traditions. Matt will also join Australian composer and saxophonist Sandy Evans in her “Indian Project” concert on September 4 contributing to the musical conversation between jazz and Indian music. On September 6, two of the performers from the opening night event — virtuoso percussionists Hamid Drake (USA) and Jesse Stewart (Ontario) — will reconvene to provide a free-ranging mixture from their eclectic backgrounds. Stewart is a well-loved favourite of the Guełph festival, and for this year’s 20th anniversary, he has composed a lengthy work for the Penderecki String Quartet to be performed on September 8 in duet with himself at the drum set.

Ensemble SuperMusique from Quebec will present its group composition entitled “Pour ne pas désespérer seul” (Not to Despair Alone) on September 7. This diverse group began initially in 1998 with founders Joanne Hétu, Danielle Palardy Roger and Diane Labrosse, and has evolved into an extensive community of musicians combining large group composition, improvisation and “musique actuelle” with multi-media theatre, dance, and songs. Their artistic practice of group improvisation is definitely in step with the broader social vision of the festival, as they see themselves standing in solidarity with communities arising from the anti-globalization movement and the use of social media.

Other festival events of interest to readers of this column include the Colloquium (September 4 to 6), and Nuit Blanche with its dusk-to-dawn events beginning on the evening of September 7. This year’s colloquium provides a wonderful opportunity to dive deeper into the themes of musical improvisation, pedagogy, social justice and activism, through a series of lectures, keynote addresses and workshops by festival artists. Nuit Blanche events include performances by members of SuperMusique — Derome/Hétu and Freedman/Caloïa (12am); Vancouver’s Birds of Paradox exploring elements of jazz and western music with traditional Chinese and Indian music (2am); a Pauline Oliveros tuning meditation (3am); the Ondine Chorus combining improv with scored music (3am) and Grossman/Brubeck interpreting baroque music (4:30am).

And if your free spirit is longing for more, there will be an opportunity on September 28 at Toronto’s Music Gallery to hear from some of the elder statesmen and scene builders of free improv music: USA saxophonist Larry Ochs playing with drummer Don Robinson, followed by Toronto-based poet and “soundsinger” Paul Dutton performing with percussionist Joe Sorbara, known for creating orchestral textures from found objects.

Voice and Mythology

This summer, I had the opportunity to experience what is known as the “eight-octave voice” at the Roy Hart International Artistic Centre located in southern France. This vocal legacy of connecting voice with the inner workings of the psyche stretches back to the early 20th century and the work of Alfred Wolfsohn. In the 1960s this vocal research evolved into a theatre-based artistic practice by one of Wolfsohn’s pupils, Roy Hart. As part of my column during this upcoming season, I’ll be making some links between what inspired me during my time at the Roy Hart Centre and the musical events of our local community.

Since the voice is the most obvious link, I’ll begin with the upcoming Soundstreams concert on October 1 in which they will be presenting two epic choral and orchestral works by the masterful Estonian composer Arvo Pärt. One of these compositions is titled Adam’s Lament, thus plunging us headlong into the territory of one of the most potent myths of the Western world — the story of Adam and Eve. As part of my residency at the Roy Hart Centre, I attended the Myth & Theatre festival which was like being submerged into an alchemical pot stirring the voice together with choreographic movement, image, spoken word and philosophical ideas.

Stories shape us and the institutions of our culture beyond what we might imagine. Initially we create the stories, and then the stories turn around and create us. And certainly this story of Adam and Eve has been one that has determined so much of our collective history. Pärt’s composition begins with the expression of grief at being expelled from Paradise and then expands further into a meditation on the sorrows of all humankind. His music is often referred to as music that comes out of the silence, creating possibilities to hear a different voice. Perhaps this other voice could be a re-examination of this myth itself. Must we collectively continue to hold onto the idea of separation, or can we create a voice, a story that brings us closer to the dream of human connection and peaceful co-existence?

Other works in the program include Pärt’s L’abbé Agathon, which recounts the legend of a fourth-century hermit tested by an angel in disguise, and pieces by two other composers, Riho Maimets and James Rolfe. Choir 21, a local group that specializes in performing contemporary choir music, will be performing alongside a string orchestra conducted by Pärt’s Estonian colleague Tõnu Kaljuste.

And now to opera — the perfect alchemical pot for combining mythic themes with music. Tapestry Opera will be offering up the latest round of opera briefs created at this years Composer-Librettist Lab, an annual gathering that teams up four composers with four writers to create, literally overnight, a series of short opera excerpts. Running from September 19 to 22, this event gives you the opportunity to hear what stories and sounds have risen up in the midst of this hothouse of creativity.

Twentieth-Century Pioneers

It’s hard to imagine that 100 years ago, experiencing strong rhythms and percussion music in the concert hall was scandalous. The music of Igor Stravinsky helped to change all that. Valery Gergiev and the Mariinsky Orchestra from St. Petersburg are returning to Roy Thomson Hall on October 6 to perform the three groundbreaking ballet scores Stravinsky composed between 1910 and 1913: The Firebird, Pétrouchka and The Rite of Spring. Fortunately, that concert will be in the afternoon, giving enough time to attend the evening concert curated by Austin Clarkson for New Music Concerts. You can read and listen to more on this meeting of Wolpe, Webern, Feldman and Cage in both the printed and online editions of The WholeNote.

Additional Concerts

TorQ Percussion Quartet: “A Shift in Time.” September 13.

Thin Edge New Music Collective: “Shaken or Stirred,” fundraising concert and silent auction. September 14.

Canadian Music Centre: Contemporary Works for Piano. September 13 and October 3.

Music Gallery and Burn Down The Capital: Julianna Barwick,
with Christine Duncan and Castle If at Double Double Land. September 26. 

Wendalyn Bartley is a Toronto-based composer and electro-vocal sound artist. Contact her at sounddreaming@gmail.com.

What happens to the new when the weather heats up and the concert seasons have ended? Does the more casual atmosphere of the summer mean that presenters, performers and audiences are ready for something more out of the ordinary? From my discoveries of what lies in store for both the curious and the lover of experimental and innovative sounds, it seems that the boundary lines between musical genres and art forms become a bit more blurred. Musical concerts, outdoor installations, performance art and electronic and sound art are all happening within the traditional and not-so-traditional music, theatre and interdisciplinary festival environments. And often, the regular indoor concert hall has been tossed aside to make room for these sounds in outside spaces or to create a more participatory audience experience. The great thing is that many of these events are happening outside the Metro Toronto area, so be prepared. Your sonic summer listening will require some travelling around the province, but that’s what vacation time is for.

Starting off in June, we are immediately plunged into a series of performances that are full of cross-pollinating and genre-crashing power. The big news is that Toronto’s multi-arts Luminato Festival is headlining Marina Abramović, a New York-based performance artist originally from Serbia who is considered to be the “grandmother” of the performance art genre. Her work explores the limits of the body and states of consciousness, while often putting herself through extreme physical pain or tests of endurance. In 2010 during a retrospective at the MoMA in New York, Abramović performed The Artist is Present during which she sat immobile and in silence all day for almost three months while spectators took turns sitting opposite her. People experienced religious-like transformations as they stared back into her penetrating presence.

You may ask — what does this have to do with music? The answer is, of course, that the story of her life, along with scenes from her performance works, has been made into an opera entitled The Life and Death of Marina Abramović. Premiered in 2011 at the Manchester International Festival and toured to sold-out audiences in several European cities, the opera will receive its North American premiere at Luminato, running June 14 to 17. Conceived and directed by the legendary Robert Wilson in collaboration with Abramović, she also performs as herself and her mother alongside Willem Dafoe as narrator and male counterpart. The music was co-composed by cult pop star Antony Hegarty and ambient minimalist William Basinski, and performed by Antony in his mesmerizing and hypnotic voice. It was his cathartic musical performances and emotional vulnerability that inspired Abramović to invite him to collaborate on this opera that she describes as “a series of births and funerals of the soul.”

Running in conjunction with the opera from June 14 to 23 will be her latest performance work/installation, MAI – Prototype. In seven interconnected pavilions in Trinity Bellwoods Park, four pre-booked participants will wear white lab coats and receive instructions on headphones as they walk through the installation for a period of two hours. Every 30 minutes a new group will begin the journey in which they will undergo the rigours of her performance practice. These encounters will be live-streamed to other locations throughout Toronto, including one at Pearson airport.

Also performing at Luminato will be the inimitable Laurie Anderson appearing as part of The Hub series of free outdoor concerts at David Pecaut Square on June 16. Anderson was one of the first performance artists to bring experimental and art-rock music to a large popular audience. Writing songs full of political edginess and performing with her invented instruments (a tape-bow violin and a computer controlled “talking stick”), she made the UK pop charts back in the early 80s.

The pop/experimental music crossover theme continues over at the Music Gallery, in the last concert of their season’s signature Pop Avant series. Curated by Tad Michalak, known for his programming of under-the-radar pop, noise, jazz and harsh electronic music, his “Burn Down the Capital Showcase” June 8 will feature three different artists. Guaranteed to set your soul on fire, the music will mix up instrumental, vocal and a wide range of electronic and ambient sounds using tape loops and synthesizers to create both an “unacceptable” and sensual evening.

Another major summer music festival happening in Toronto is the NXNE Festival that takes over the downtown streets and clubs. This year, it’s exciting to see their programmers venturing into the world of sound art and co-producing three events with NAISA (New Adventures In Sound Art). These include a sound sculpture performance at the AGO on June 6, an audiovisual machine installation that runs from June 11 to 22 at the Wychwood Barns with a live performance on June 10 and a sound walk through Trinity Square on June 13, where sounds of underwater life will be projected into the outdoor urban space. 

For July, it’s off to Stratford Summer Music. It just so happens that July 18 is R. Murray Schafer’s 80th birthday, and he is being honoured that night with a tribute concert featuring pieces from his Patria cycle of musical dramas. As part of the celebration, Schafer’s visually-based scores will be on display at the Stratford Public Library from July 17 to August 25.

Schafer’s vision has opened up our ears to the soundscape (a term he coined), and so it’s only natural that he would create pieces for specific outdoor environments. His Music for Wilderness Lake from 1979 will be performed at 7am on July 19, 20 and 21 along the shores of the Avon River. Imagine 12 trombones spread amongst the mists of the riverbank, combined with an aria from another sunrise work — Princess of the Stars. Definitely worth an early morning rising. And if you’re up for experiencing something quite out of the ordinary, you could sign up to participate in a workshop performance of Asterion — the latest in his Patria series. The piece is an outdoor labyrinth located near Peterborough that has a series of rooms and passages participants must navigate alone as they encounter both performers and the environment along the way. Designed to be an intense and transformative soul journey, I couldn’t help but connect the dots to the Abramović installation designed with a similar intention. Happening through June and July, go to patria.org if you are drawn to join in.

Returning to Stratford Summer Music, we find that the entire cast and crew for a concert of Canadian contemporary opera excerpts has arrived via bicycle. The Bicycle Opera Project began last summer, touring from town to city via pedal power. This year, not only will they be performing in Stratford, but also in Toronto (July 4 to 7), and on tour from July 11 to 25 in Hamilton, Guelph, Elora, Fergus, Kitchener, Waterloo, Bayfield and London, arriving in Stratford for performances from July 26 to 28. This year’s repertoire focuses on telling the stories of women, featuring works from six different Canadian composers. For further details of the tour, check out bicycleopera.ca. Also appearing at Stratford Summer Music will be the acclaimed accordionist and contemporary music champion Joseph Macerollo in six weekend concerts, starting July 20 to 21 and ending August 24 to 25.

Not far from Stratford is the town of Elora, host to a summer music festival of many different styles. Works by contemporary composers can be heard on July 13 with the New Zealand String Quartet (Jack Body) and on July 14 with the Manitoba Chamber Orchestra (Philip Glass). The Elora Festival Singers will celebrate the 100th anniversary of Benjamin Britten in their concert on July 28.

August takes us back to the leading edges of sound and electronics with two festivals of sound art alongside the well-loved Ottawa Chamberfest. For the last seven years in Meaford, Ontario, over the August long weekend, the award-winning composer Gordon Monahan has been directing the Electric Eclectics festival of experimental music and sound art. With camping on-site, this year’s festival runs from August 2 to 4 and includes an extensive lineup of performances and installations, including New Yorkers Shelley Hirsch (experimental vocals) and Keiko Uenishi (laptop electronics), a long-awaited return by former Musicworks editor Tina Pearson (Victoria), a sound/light performance by Music for Lamps (Montreal) and the Sunda Duo (Toronto) with Bill Parsons and The WholeNote’s Andrew Timar. 

Over in Ottawa, musical experimentation on the long weekend at the Ottawa Chamberfest begins on August 2 with the improvisation-based Element Choir. Led by Christine Duncan, who uses a series of hand cues to sculpt real-time compositions, singers from Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal will be joined by Jim Lewis (trumpet) and Jean Martin (drums) to create a wild and energetic musical ride. This year’s festival also offers the New Music Now series with six concerts offered throughout the daytime hours on August 5 and 6. Performers and composers presented include pianist and multimedia artist Megumi Masaki, the Gryphon Trio (Lutoslawski, Ohana), Ensemble Transmission (Sokolović), the JACK quartet (Zorn, Lachenmann, Butterfield), choral works (Whittall, Kurtág, Berio) and a concert of works by Xenakis. In addition to this series, the festival is offering “snapshot” performances to ticket holders of the evening’s Siskind Concerts, including performances by Lori Freedman and the JACK quartet and presentations on the works of John Weinzweig and Xenakis. And if you are a fan of American composer Eric Whitacre, the Elora Festival Singers will perform three of his works in their concert on August 7, including Sleep — his online virtual choir hit.

Mid-month, from August 14 to 17, it’s the Toronto Electroacoustic Symposium with multiple performances and presentations. Featured this year are two giants of Canadian electroacoustic music: Francis Dhomont (also the keynote speaker) and Barry Truax. Co-produced with NAISA, all concerts will be diffused using a multi-speaker spatialization system. And as the summer days slowly become shorter, the Summer Music in the Garden series presented at Harbourfront’s outdoor Music Garden will feature the sounds of the TorQ Percussion Quartet on August 29. Performing compositions by Steve Reich, John Luther Adams, Richard Burrows and Daniel Morphy and an improvisation on clay instruments by the ensemble, the focus is on the natural elements of earth, water, air and fire. Overall, it’s a great summer lineup for discovering what’s cooking in the experimental sonic stew.

In addition: June 20 at Gallery 345, Kathryn Ladano on bass clarinet has two sets of improvised music including electronics and special guests.

July 19 at 7pm, Soundstreams Salon 21 presents “Summer Sound Walk,” a free tour through the different acoustic spaces of the Gardiner Museum and surrounding area. The event will feature vocalist, cellist and practitioner of Deep Listening, Anne Bourne, who will lead participants in guided listening exercises and invite them to listen to the sounds of the evening mingled with improvised live music. Definitely an event not to miss!  

Wendalyn Bartley is a Toronto-based composer and electro-vocal sound artist. Contact her at sounddreaming@gmail.com.

In last month’s column, I spoke about the act of listening, and how music creators have been evolving compositional strategies that bring more awareness to the ways we listen. When we slow down and open our whole being to engage with the sounds our ears are receiving, we truly do enter into a realm of perception that transcends normal everyday life. This can, of course, happen when we are listening to traditional music, but when the creative and artistic intention is focused on creating shifts in our perception of sound, it is easy to feel as if we are slipping into an “alternative universe.” This is how Musical Toronto blog-writer John Terauds describes his experience of listening to Ann Southam’s music as performed by Eve Egoyan — a concert I wrote about in that same column in April.

The Open Ears Festival of Music and Sound on May 31 and June 1 in Kitchener presents a perfect opportunity to stretch our listening awareness even further. This year’s festival, “Between the Ears,” offers a wide range of events including concerts, sound installations, a regatta of origami boats in a reflecting pool, performative sculptures, late night improvisations and a street market. On May 31, some wild things are in store for festival-goers, including the percussion music of Australian composer Erik Griswold. His pieces have been described as the place where music and kinetic sculpture merge. Imagine a percussionist playing an array of temple bells and bowls accompanied by the sounds and rhythms created by a cone-shaped pendulum spilling 50 pounds of rice through a large funnel. This is Griswold’s work Spill. In his piece Strings Attached for six percussionists, the gestures of the performers become a living sculpture. Their mallets are attached with nylon ropes to a lighting rig, thus visually magnifying their movements.

Other features of the Friday evening event include a performance of James Tenney’s Having Never Written A Note for Percussion — a stunning acoustic experience sure to stretch you wide open. In fact, my body can still remember the reverberations I experienced back in 2000 when this piece was performed at the Tenney farewell concert in Toronto. A single note on an instrument of choice is played as a tremelo for “a long time.” It begins at the threshold of hearing and rises in volume to an extreme threshold before returning again to silence. A simple concept yet the complex sonic results are unforgettable.

The festival evening will wind down with Hit Parade by Christof Migone. Participants lie face down and pound the pavement with a microphone. Everyone has their own amplifier positioned as far away as possible and can take breaks after each 100 hits. A sonic playground extraordinaire!

June 1 brings a performance by current and founding members of the legendary improvising ensemble CCMC (who also were the founders of the Music Gallery), and a cutting edge electronic piece, La chambre des machines, created by Martin Messier and Nicolas Bernier who digitally transform sounds made from machine gears and cranks. The night ends at the Walper Hotel with the members of Freedman (Justin Haynes, Jean Martin and Ryan Driver) performing on a ukulele, a suitcase and a street-sweeper bristle.

Xenakis and Beyond: Just preceding “Between the Ears” is another festive gathering called “Random Walks: Music of Xenakis and Beyond” running from May 24 (in Toronto) to May 25 (in Waterloo). Presented by the Fields Institute, the Perimeter Institute and the Institute for Quantum Computing in Waterloo, this two-day event will focus on the music, ideas and influence of Greek composer and architect Iannis Xenakis. Concert presentations of his string quartet, percussion and electroacoustic music will be intermingled with lecture and discussion sessions. Xenakis was a 20th-century “heavy weight,” whose ideas continue to have a profound impact across many disciplines. Part of the festival will be devoted to exploring and taking stock of the range of this influence on, among others, composers, mathematicians, architects and computer scientists.

Xenakis’ music is often quite physically demanding on the performer, requiring a high level of technical prowess. That should bode well for some extraordinary concert experiences. Performers include the JACK Quartet, renowned for its “explosive virtuosity,” and an extensive list of percussion soloists and ensembles, including Montreal’s Aiyun Huang and Toronto’s TorQ Percussion Quartet. For a great essay on Xenakis’ string quartet music, I recommend the article written by James Harley, accessible through a weblink on the festival’s home page (google “Random Walks”). Noted speakers include musician and author Sharon Kanach who worked closely with Xenakis for many years, and composer/computer programmer Curtis Roads, former editor of the Computer Music Journal who also pioneered a form of computer sound creation known as granular synthesis.

More on string quartets: May seems to be the month not only for experimental music festivals, but also for string quartets specializing in contemporary music. Besides the JACK Quartet mentioned above, the Mivos Quartet from New York will be offering two concerts with slightly varying programs on May 24 at Gallery 345 and May 25 at Heliconian Hall. The young players of this quartet came together in 2008 after graduating from the Manhattan School of Music and set out to expand the quartet repertoire by commissioning and collaborating with a wide cross-section of contemporary composers. A third quartet — the Toronto-based Magenta String Quartet — will be presenting works by Toronto composers Eatock, Gfroerer and Vachon on May 25 at Eastminster United Church.

East and West: The East and West musical dialogue continues in two extraordinary events this coming month. First up is a production by the Toronto Masque Theatre of The Lesson of Da Ji written by two of Toronto’s own: composer Alice Ping Yee Ho and librettist Marjorie Chan. Traditionally, masque is a fusion of music, dance and theatre which flourished in Europe during the 16th and 17th centuries. This new work, which runs from May 10to 12 at the Al Green Theatre, will be a contemporary take on the older form based on the true story of the Shang dynasty concubine Da Ji and the King who took revenge on her secret lover. The music will blend European baroque instruments with various eastern instruments including the pipa, erhu and guquin, which Da Ji learns to play as part of the narrative. A traditional Peking Opera dance performance will complement the blending.

The second East and West event will be Soundstreams’ season finale concert, “Music for China,” on May 14, which also happens to be their first stop on the way to touring in China. Featuring music for chamber orchestra written by Chinese, North American and European composers, the concert will include performances by the Canadian Accordes String Quartet and the Chai Found Music Workshop — an ensemble from Taiwan that specializes in contemporary classical as well as traditional Chinese and Taiwanese music. I do have to note a heartening feature of this concert program, even though it is not mentioned in any of the media releases (which is not to be taken as a criticism, but rather a sign of progress). All works on the program are written by women, with the exception of the piece composed by Murray Schafer. This fascinating lineup includes composers Dorothy Chang (USA), Fuhong Shi (China), Alexina Louie (Canada) and Kaija Saariaho (Finland).

Contemporary choral: Four concerts of contemporary choral music are in store for lovers of this genre. The Oriana Women’s Choir celebrates the 80th birthday of Ruth Watson Henderson on May 25 with a concert featuring several of her compositions along with premieres by emerging composers. On June 1 the Amadeus Choir joins with the Bach Children’s Chorus to present Henderson’s Voices of Earth and a premiere by Eleanor Daley. And on May 10, the Upper Canada Choristers sing music of the Americas, including pieces by Astor Piazzolla (Fuga y misterio) and Eric Whitacre (Lux Aurumque) sung by their highly accomplished Latin ensemble Cantemos. If you haven’t yet heard the virtual choir version of Lux Aurumque — it’s a must. Go to YouTube and search it out. Whitacre’s music is also included in the Da Capo Chamber Choir’s concerts on May 4 (Kitchener) and May 5 (Waterloo), along with works by Leonard Enns and Glenn Buhr.

Emerging: New sounds by young composers can be experienced at two events, both happening on May 25. At the Music Gallery, the ∆TENT ensemble performs works by emerging local and international composers, while the group called “(insert TITLE)” showcases works for the marimba. Arraymusic presents their annual Young Composers’ Workshop Concert with premieres by four emerging composers who have spent the month workshopping and experimenting with members of the Array ensemble to create their new pieces.

With such an eclectic mix of concerts representing widely diverging aesthetics to choose from, this month offers the perfect time to open your ears to something you may not have encountered before. And in so doing, you will be right in step with the stimulating forces spring offers. 

Wendalyn Bartley is a Toronto-based composer and electro-vocal sound artist. sounddreaming@gmail.com.